In the Woods Somewhere
by demetrifever123
Summary: A newly resurrected David is given a chance to piece together the lives that he and his brothers lost. Of course, he soon learns that no matter how painstakingly he lines up the seams, things will never be the same as before. He also learns that maybe that's okay.
1. Chapter 1

In death, he dreamed.

He didn't recall the beginning of this dream. The last thing he vaguely remembered was drifting off in Michael Emerson's home. He remembered sharp, smooth bone. Agony that ebbed to something soft and serene, and then nothing. He couldn't call it bliss, exactly. It wasn't peace or contentment, or even discontentment for that matter. It just… _was_.

But that was only a distant memory as he wandered through unfamiliar scenery. He was in a forest—an unremarkable forest that could have been anywhere in the world, or perhaps nowhere in the world at all. The forest itself was nothing special, but there was something else about this place that felt…unearthly. It was dawn, he thought, but without any trace of sunlight to be seen. He couldn't see the sky but the air was a shade of pale blue and grey, much lighter than he normally would be comfortable with. So light that it could have been high noon on a cloudy day. There was no fog; the ambient air was clear as glass, and quiet as death.

David breathed in the air and smelled nothing. He kept walking.

Later—he couldn't know exactly how long he'd been wandering aimlessly, as there was no time in this dream of his—the trees eventually disappeared and gave way to an endless wave of bluffs overlooking a dark ocean. The sky was grey, but the grass was an electric green.

David saw a familiar figure in the distance, looking out into the water. He approached until he was only within an arm's reach and then tilted his head slightly, properly thinking for the first time since arriving here. He had seen no animals in this place, no insects. Even the wind seemed absent except for out here, by the ocean. Speaking into the air after all this time felt like slicing through the peaceful silent with an axe. He nearly scared himself with the sudden sound of his own voice. "Brother."

Marko—or at least the visage that looked like Marko from behind—didn't immediately look at him. His long, curly hair blew lightly in the wind. "Do you remember ever seeing it for yourself? The sun." He sounded like Marko when he spoke, and when he turned to look at David, he looked completely identical to him, too. His pretty features looked soft, perfectly content, and he smiled.

It was him, David realized. It was too perfect to be anything else. Perhaps he wasn't here, exactly, but the image and demeanor of his deceased brother was real enough. David looked at him lovingly. "No," he responded, "but the millions of paintings and pictures are enough for me."

Marko hummed and faced the ocean again. "They're kind of underwhelming."

David didn't take his eyes off of him. "Where are the others?" There was no clear response to that—only a slight tilt to his brother's head that could have meant anything. "Marko." Marko met his eyes again and David suddenly felt a sense of urgency, like there was somewhere they needed to go. Somewhere they needed to be, far away from…wherever this was. "We should go. The sun will be out any minute."

"Go where?"

David didn't understand why Marko seemed unconcerned with their situation. "Somewhere safer."

"This doesn't feel safe to you?"

"Not anymore." It felt like the longer they stayed here, the worse off they would be.

Marko cast his eyes downward and then looked into the water once more. He seemed consistently drawn to it. David supposed he would be too, before. Before this nagging sensation hit him, this adrenaline. "I'd like to stay here longer."

"Marko." David didn't beg for anything—not even his brothers' lives—but he wasn't above asking nicely from time to time. "Let's just go."

"You go, David," Marko said calmly. There was no sun yet, but the sky was becoming alarmingly bright.

He furrowed his brows in confusion. "What?" The sky turned white and David squinted and ducked his head against the harsh light. He reached for his brother but only met air.

" _If you have to go, then go."_

 _. . . ._

David came back to reality slowly, sense by sense. He gathered as much information about his situation as he could without opening his eyes, without breathing or even twitching. He had to be sure that his status of being alive wasn't dependent on anyone in his immediate vicinity thinking he was dead.

It took a moment to decide on his orientation, but he concluded that he was laying down and no longer propped up by antlers. He then listened very closely for a long while—listened for vibrations in the air, for any minuscule sounds. There was no breathing, no talking, no footsteps. The air was completely silent, which meant he was alone.

David breathed, and immediately went into a coughing fit. The air was stale and smelled of nothing but wood, compost, and dead vampire. He crinkled his nose in distaste once the coughing stopped.

He finally opened his eyes. It was as dark as could be, so he allowed his vision to shift to something that didn't depend on light. It was the vision that allowed them to hunt and live in the dark, a sight lacking in detail but not in shapes or movements. He could see that he was enclosed in a box. He lifted his stiff, cramped arms to feel the material. Wood. So he was in a…coffin? He couldn't imagine what else it could be, but his enemies still occasionally surprise him, so perhaps it was something else.

He would assume it was a coffin, though, and that the smell of compost indicated he was six feet under. Things just kept getting better and better, didn't they?

Two smacks to the lid above him confirmed that it was cheap, thin wood; a stream of dirt slowly poured onto his chest from the crack he had just made.

This wouldn't be pleasant, so he would try to make it fast. He closed his eyes and then punched the wood with no small effort. A large amount of dirt fell onto his chest and neck, and he used this new gap in the ground to push away the wood he had punched out. He punched and kicked out the rest of the lid in the same fashion, and then realized that that step took way too much out of him. He was a lot weaker than he originally thought.

He struggled through the dirt, clawing his way out toward the surface. Had he been at full strength, he could have karate-kicked that lid into next week and been dusting his hands off above ground within seconds. This, however, took a while. He felt exhausted, and had to muster an extra surge of energy to finally breach through the final layer and painfully pull himself out of the ground.

He laid there for a moment, panting and filthy.

David picked himself up off the ground. He needed to hunt. He needed to feed, and then figure out what the hell to do next.

. . . .

David gorged himself at the beach, draining three humans and even taking one with him as an on-the-go snack. It was knocked out and draped over David's shoulder as he flew to the first place he was naturally drawn to retreat to. He felt stronger but nowhere close to full strength yet. Hopefully his to-go meal would help a bit with that.

The sunken hotel that he and his brothers once called home was in complete disarray when he arrived. For a split second he tensed, ready to discover that someone else had taken root in this place. But he was still alone, aside from the passed-out male on his shoulder. He remembered that _they_ had trashed their home following Marko's death. David and Dwayne had gone on something akin to a rampage, breaking and throwing everything in sight, while Paul sat hunched over their brother's body, completely inconsolable. It had easily been the worst moment of David's life—or he at least _thought_ it couldn't have gotten any worse. It did.

He tied up the man so he wouldn't try to do anything stupid once he woke up, like attempt to run away. That would just be a nuisance, and David wanted to conserve his energy.

All of their things were still here, albeit strewn all over the place. David picked up pieces of his spare clothes and changed out of the dirt-covered, death-stenched clothing he was wearing, then stepped outside to wash his hair, hands and face in the ocean.

When he returned, his meal was awake. The human was struggling against his restraints, his panic breaking him out of the doped-up high he had been on when David found him. He struggled harder when he saw the pale vampire approaching.

David kneeled down in front of where he was tied to an old support beam. "Oh my God, please, _please_ don't hurt me _please_ ," he began with the typical sobbing. "Just let me go and I'll keep my mouth shut, I swear."

David's voice was calm and soothing. "Take it easy, pal." The human shook with fear. David's icy blue eyes leveled with his prey's petrified hazel ones. "What's your name?"

"Eugene…"

"My name's David. What's the date today, Eugene?"

"Huh?"

"The date," he repeated without frustration. "And the year."

"Uh…Fri-d-day, J-June, uh…23rd or…24th, I think—I don't r-remember exactly—"

"It's all right," he assured him. "The year?"

Eugene looked at him strangely but complied. "1988?"

A year, then. He was underground for nearly a full year.

"Please let me go," he begged again. David merely stood and walked off.

"Stay right there," he called back with mild amusement.

He found the bejeweled bottle of blood—empty, save for a few drops. He recalled then that Michael had drained the whole thing. That had been a waste, hadn't it?

David hadn't felt this weak in a long, long time. His vulnerability drove him to reach out to the only thing that could bring him comfort, that could bring him some sense of security and direction—the link between himself and his brothers, even Max. Of course that link didn't exist anymore. Not fractured but rather missing completely, as if it never existed at all. It ached deep in his bones like the worst phantom pain, like someone had forcibly ripped a part of his soul and left him to bleed.

He set the bottle down with forced care and stalked off, leaving the main room of the hotel in favor of looking for his brother's body.

 _Looking_ was a loose term, of course, because Marko—like everything else in the hotel—was exactly where they left him. Laying atop a large wooden table in one of the nicest, most intact rooms in the hotel, with a silk sheet draped over the body. They'd been too shaken to think of doing anything else at that time. They probably would have dealt with it later, after coming back from enacting their revenge.

David approached warily, a bit irked by how generally _unchanged_ everything was. But upon coming to stand directly over his brother and looking more closely, he could see the signs of time. Layers of dust. New cobwebs.

David forced himself to lift the sheet from Marko's body. He had to see what had become of his family. He had to see what he'd been unable to prevent.

The silk slid to the ground and he felt like someone was grabbing him by the throat. He'd expected a decayed, rotten corpse, perhaps a skeleton. But Marko was fully intact, _too_ intact. His ashen skin and lack of…well, lack of _existence_ …was the only indication that he was actually dead. Dead for a year, in fact.

 _Impossible_.

He barely registered leaving. Half a minute later, David returned to the room once more with a shaking Eugene in tow.

"Oh my God is that a dead body?" David ignored him. He had the human's arm in a vice grip and dragged him towards the table.

"Oh come on, man, what the hell is this?"

David pushed Eugene's head forward, held him there. A stream of the same pleas as earlier escaped his mouth. "Shhh," David soothed, and Eugene's words trailed off into a whimper. "You're gonna help me, Eugene." He said it like it was a promise. Really, it felt like a Hail Mary.

"No, please, I don't—"

"Try to keep it together," David patronized, fist tightening in the human's hair. "This will only pinch."

David bled the human into his brother's mouth slowly, careful not to waste any of the blood. The fight eventually left the human, and David continued to hold him up, hold him steady.

When his heart gave out, David allowed the body to flop onto the ground like a heavy sack of potatoes. He looked down at his brother, eyes searching desperately for any signs that his little sacrifice had worked. Last year he would have had no reason to even think of attempting this. There was no reason it should work. There was also no logical reason that David had been able to crawl out of the dirt earlier that night, so all bets were off.

He waited.

Nothing.

"Okay," he muttered, pulling the right sleeve of his jacket a few inches above his glove. "You picky bastard, you can have mine." His lips quirked into an almost-smile. He felt so desperate he could cry, God forbid. Before letting that happen, he bit into his arm and held it above his brother's mouth. The wound dripped steadily at first but not for long; it healed and he bit into himself again and again. The longer he bled, the slower he healed, and the more he could feel his remaining strength drain away.

"Come on…" He tore deeper, bled heavily this time. That wound, too, healed, and David had nothing left to spare.

He sunk to the floor, turning so that his back was against one of the table legs. His breath came out in quiet pants. "I'm all out." He closed his eyes. "I can't give any more." Absently, he wondered if he was still talking to Marko's body. He didn't believe in an afterlife—nor did he actively disbelieve in one—but he was certain that if something _was_ watching over the world, it most certainly wouldn't help _him_.

He didn't know what to do, or what to look towards. He had nothing. He'd lost _everything_.

After resting for a moment, he slowly pulled himself back up, peering over his brother with naïve hope. Unsurprisingly, nothing was going to cut him a break. Nothing would bring any of his brothers back. Marko wasn't going to suddenly sit up on the table. That wasn't his reality.

David gazed down at his brother in anguish, feeling suffocated with remorse. There was something deeply disturbing about seeing Marko's body, seeing the empty shell that really _wasn't_ him anymore, and David had the sudden, insane urge to laugh at all of this. They took lives so easily because life did not exist without death. David didn't fear death—yet he was so selfish that when It came knocking on their doorstep and took someone from _him_ , he had become blinded by the promise of revenge and led the rest of his family to their deaths. They were sloppy bursting in there, guns blazing. They should never have been there.

He reached out to touch his brother, then—a gentle comfort for himself, perhaps. That's why he stopped himself and lowered his hand. He'd always restrained from showing Marko any affection before, for somewhat complicated reasons; he wasn't allowed to show it now. He didn't get to be _sorry_ for all the things that were, the things that _should've_ been, the things that never would be. He'd never be able to make it up to any of them. Never.

He should still be in the ground. Whywas he even _here_? He _died_ , didn't he? Did Michael miss and send him into a sort of comatose state while he slowly healed? Was it _Michael_ who buried him? Or was it Max? He knew that Max was dead, but had he been killed that same night or did it happen later? Were Dwayne and Paul buried as well? Why didn't Marko look like a monster out of Thriller? David was too drained to make sense of it all.

He used the edges to guide himself around the table, feeling painfully weak. There was a space on the other side of his brother, a dust-free area from where the sheet had been draped. He didn't know what he was thinking, just that he was weak and lost, like a man stranded at sea and at the mercy of forces larger than himself. David laid on his back in that space, inches from Marko's body, and looked up at the dark, vaulted ceiling. Here, he could allow himself a twisted sense of comfort from being near one of his brothers. Here, he could pretend he was drifting away.

David allowed himself to rest and, eventually, relax. A cool, haunting sensation seeped its way forward from the back of his mind. It was like a light flickering on in a vast, dark room. He relished the familiar feeling, even if he was imagining it.

Marko's gasp startled him so harshly that his soul almost ascended from his body.

The smaller _not-dead_ vampire sat up abruptly, coughing, and David was quick to sit up with him. He was stunned silent for a moment. Marko's breathing came out as more gasps. It was like music to his ears.

David watched him closely, and unconsciously leaned towards him. "Easy, Marko." When Marko's eyes met his, they were wide and questioning. Confused. A bit fearful. David smiled with pure relief.

Marko's breaths quickly became more even and relaxed, but when he spoke, his voice was filled with trepidation.

"What happened?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who's still reading (and especially to those who left a review)! This one's a bit longer than the last chapter. My way of saying sorry for the long wait. xD Enjoy!**

* * *

"We'll find out what happened to their bodies," David promised after filling Marko in on everything he'd missed. He was taking it fairly well, considering… _everything_ …or perhaps he was just too whiplashed to feel the full gravity of their situation. David placed a hand behind his shoulder, the touch as gentle as a ghost's—as if anything more might send him straight back to purgatory, or wherever it is they came from. "We'll get them back."

David could see the whirlpool of anger, pain and confusion on his brother's face. Marko always had been very expressive in that way—always wearing his heart on his sleeve, even when he was trying not to.

David's heart swelled just as painfully as it ached. "And then…maybe we can fix this." His fingers grazed the stake-sized hole in the back of Marko's jacket.

Marko seemed further agitated—either from his ruined jacket or from something else entirely—but he said nothing about it. He swung his legs over the edge of the table as if to stand. The corners of David's mouth quirked and he slid across the smooth wood to join him. It was almost surreal, looking at him—seeing him _alive_. But there was a serious matter to take care of, and David's small smile quickly disappeared. It was difficult to truly _focus_ with his thoughts in a hundred different places, but he had to try.

They were alive. Now they had to stay that way.

"I was buried," he began. "I was thinking it could've been Max, but—"

He watched Marko take the first step onto the floor. The smaller blonde immediately teetered and David was there to make sure he wouldn't stumble or fall. He pushed off the table and grasped Marko around his arms. "Maybe you should sit for another minute."

Marko rolled his head to the side to shoot him a sardonic look. "I know how to walk, David." That was the first thing he'd said since David's brief recap on their lives.

It was by pure principal, and not by want, that David let him go. He watched Marko step around Eugene's body with a quiet _'ew'_ and make three shaky steps towards the door. "If you fall and impale yourself on something, I'm not putting you back together again."

Marko paused with one hand on the doorframe and turned over his shoulder. " _Impale_ myself," he repeated with a subtle smile, half-excited and half-scandalized. David rolled his eyes.

He followed Marko as they left the room. "As I was saying, if it was Max—"

"It definitely wasn't."

David kept up a slow pace besides him. He lifted his eyebrows. "Oh?"

It was Marko's turn to roll his eyes. "Did your brain start to rot while you were six feet under? You said that Max told you to leave me here. So if he knew where _I_ was, why was I still here while you were in a coffin ten miles away? I know he didn't like me that much, but you know how thorough he is. He wouldn't have left a body lying around, even in this place."

David was stunned into silence for a moment. He didn't know that Marko had been doing that much thinking while he'd been quiet. He was absolutely right, and David felt like a moron for even entertaining the idea that Max would have been behind David's strange burial. Max must have perished shortly after they did.

 _This is why I need you_ , he wanted to say. "Don't say that."

Marko made a face. "What?"

"That he didn't like you. You were everything he ever wanted in us. You always obeyed."

Marko snorted. "As if that matters."

What in the world did _that_ mean? David furrowed his brows, about to ask, but they'd reached the main room of the hotel and Marko went ahead of him, taking it all in. "What the hell did you do to this place?"

David would rather not explain. "So it wasn't Max, but that means it's even more important that we find out what happened to Paul and Dwayne. I left a mess at my gravesite. It won't take a genius to figure out what's going on. If it was Michael or his family, and they buried the others somewhere, they might panic, maybe dig up the bodies and torch them." And who knew how long it would take to come back from that— _if_ it was even possible at all. "We have to find them tonight."

Marko nodded his agreement, and then looked down at his blood-soaked clothes. His jacket had been marinating in his own blood for a year now. Coupled with the giant hole in the back, it was likely ruined for good. "Can I change first?"

It was a rhetorical question, but David answered with a small smile anyway. "Of course."

. . . . .

The Emerson home was dark—and empty, despite the late hour. At first David feared that they had moved on, that Michael and his family didn't even live in Santa Carla anymore and it would be difficult—maybe even impossible—to find him. That possibility shouldn't have bothered David, but it did.

It wasn't until he entered the home through the naively-unlocked front door that his concerns were quelled. Michael definitely still lived here. He could smell it. Had they been brothers, he'd be able to _sense_ it, too—but that had never been anything more than Max's pipe dream. David had only one living brother and he was standing right next to him in the Emersons' living room.

It was almost surreal to be here again, after…everything. The memories were still so vivid, although the fine details of the home were a testament to the time that had passed.

The house looked…nice. It'd been repaired, and there were no signs of what had transpired the previous summer. The rooms looked comfortable and lived-in. The place was very homey, and he wondered if they would have visited here often, if Max had gotten his way. He wondered if Lucy would have joined Max at his estate, if Michael and Sam would have chosen to remain here, if David and the others would have become close with them. The hotel had been their pseudo-sanctuary away from Max; maybe this would have become something similar. Maybe they would have been—

He stopped that train of thought right there. The words _a family_ and _happy_ made him feel nauseous, because they were Max's words, not his.

Whatever could have been, didn't matter—because now when David looked around Michael's home, all he saw were puddles and smears of blood around the corpses of Dwayne and Paul. Not as he remembered, because he'd never seen their bodies, but as he imagined them to be.

He stared at a family photo that was positioned on top of the fireplace. Michael, Sam, and Lucy were smiling together in someone else's yard, someone with a fence and full, green grass and an above-ground pool. This was an older photo, taken at least several years ago. Sam had braces. Michael had acne. It wasn't a planned, posed picture. It looked impromptu, probably taken by a relative at some kind of…get-together…barbecue…or whatever families did these days. David was in touch with most things, but not all things.

"Didn't they have a dog?" Marko asked, opening and closing different drawers in the kitchen while David uncomfortably recalled what a happy human family looked like. He would only know from passive observation, not experience.

He cringed at Marko's question. He hadn't _seen_ his brothers die, but he'd felt it, and he had a mostly complete image of how Paul had gone out. It was ironic because Paul loved dogs, even if they didn't always love him. David's mind was cruel enough to instantly provide him with a playback of Paul's final moments, of the blond going into one of the bedrooms to wait for the Frog brothers. David never should have allowed him to seek retribution, not when Paul was angry and grieving so deeply that he could barely see straight, let alone _think_ straight. Paul had sought him out, in his final moment, reaching for his link to David, to Dwayne. As he died, Paul clung to them with a vice grip, desperately shoving at them what David suspected was every emotion Paul had ever felt in his life. David had felt equally cornered and horrified, as if he was being gripped for help by a man who'd been lit on fire. The sense of self-preservation within him, the part that didn't want to burn up too, had forced him to pull away.

"They did," he replied, straining himself to keep an even tone. He turned away from the cool fireplace, just as he'd turned away from his dying brother when he couldn't bring himself to watch. "Don't move things around too much."

In a flash he was at the top of the stairs, looking over the main living area and then glancing down the hallway. "Why?" Marko asked from downstairs. "We're gonna talk to at least Michael, aren't we? It's won't be a secret that we're back." David didn't immediately respond, only ventured down the hall with reserved curiosity, peeking into any open rooms, listening to the way the house moved, searching for any details that would give him a reason _not_ to confront Michael. When David did things his way, he preferred to do them carefully. He should have been this careful _before_ , but that choice had been taken away by Max with all his impatience to reach a happily ever after.

"David?"

He felt Marko silently join him upstairs, a few arms' lengths behind him. Marko had sounded concerned. "It won't be a secret that _I'm_ back," he finally replied. "You're gonna be checking Max's property and watering his plants." He pushed open the door to someone's bedroom and stepped inside.

There was a moment of silence before Marko stalked after him. "Do I get to know _why_ I'm watering Max's plants?"

"It's just a figure of speech," David said easily. This seemed like Sam's room, if the bright clothes and the large assortment of comics were anything to go by. David wasn't snooping around to take inventory of their personal belongings, though; he was doing a general sweep to find anything an ordinary person wouldn't have. Holy water. Excessive garlic or silver. Anything to suggest that the Emersons were dangerous to him in this weakened state—things that David would feel repelled by just by being in their vicinity. If he tuned in closely enough, he'd find even the most hidden weapon without having to lift a finger.

"I'm aware," Marko impatiently replied.

David lifted his eyes to the ceiling and spun around to face his brother. He could see that Marko was more confused—perhaps offended, even—than standoffish. The smaller vampire was more petulant right now than usual. David decided to go easy on him, in light of the year they'd had. "It'd be best if you're not here, if they come home. Trust me."

Michael or his family could be hostile about David's return. They could try to kill him. They could even succeed. He didn't _plan_ on dying again, but if the first time taught him anything, it was that he didn't always think straight wherever his brothers or Michael were concerned. If that's how things ended up, he couldn't have Marko become a target as well. From a logical standpoint, Marko would be the only one who could possibly bring back the others; from an emotional stance, he was all David had left. He couldn't think of a worse scenario than one where Marko was killed _before_ him, _again_. A scenario where David was _alone. Again._

"Go," he ordered before Marko could properly react to his vague explanation. "See if Max has anything left to his name—and get something to eat for yourself. I'll call on you if I need you."

David turned his back, and Marko disappeared without a word. Only the tell-tale, barely audible _whoosh_ of air indicated his departure.

He was hit with a wave of panic as soon as Marko was gone. He had never been concerned about his brother doing anything stupid or overly reckless; it was everyone else that he didn't trust. He couldn't protect his brother if he wasn't with him.

"And be smart," he added as an afterthought before (he hoped) Marko was completely out of earshot. He would have told him to be _safe_ , but that sounded like something Max would say. Max would have nagged at them to lay low, told them exactly where to go and what to do.

The swift obedience was something that he suspected he wouldn't see for much longer. He felt as if he was on thinning ice, and every poor decision, every misplaced judgment would further wear down their relationship. Maybe everything was fairly normal right now, but Marko's perception and loyalty would change soon enough. Marko would question him. Maybe even come to resent him, for everything that he had allowed to happen. David wouldn't blame him.

After the strongest wave of anxiety subsided, dread weighed heavily on him instead. He bowed his head and clenched his teeth.

He had much to atone for.

. . . . .

After the impromptu home inspection, David found himself on the front deck, half-sitting on the small ledge created by the wooden railing and watching the night crawl by. He gazed up at the partially-obscured moon, listened to the sounds of insects in the grass and the Emersons' goats mulling about in their pen. He and Marko had noticed horses in the pasture behind the barn when they were initially surveying the property, but they were quiet now. Marko had an immense (and secret) soft spot for animals, to balance out the general spite he held for most humans. David felt a passive interest toward both humans and animals and never really bothered with approaching either, unless he had explicit motive to do so. Sometimes he felt like he wasn't actively _here_ , that he was merely observing the world and trying to find a place in it where he belonged. Of course he'd been human once, and of course he was alive in some sense, but he had a difficult time living so closely around mortals. His old humanity was too close for comfort—distant enough that he struggled to connect with humans, yet close enough that he still wanted those connections at all. He supposed that's partly why he was even here in the first place, waiting for Michael (or for anyone else, really, at this point) to eventually come home. Waiting outside like a normal person would. No tricks, no mind games. He wanted to talk to Michael like he was a person and not a goal to be obtained, something he should have done the first time around.

His brothers were the connection to reality that he needed. They were the only people he _knew_ and understood, the only people who might just understand _him_ , at least on a very basic, instinctual level. But now…now they were no longer the only connections he might have.

He hoped that Michael could see beyond all the theatrics and the blood and realize the events of last summer for what they really were. He hoped that Michael didn't resent him. David knew that they pushed him too hard, but it wasn't by choice.

If Michael did hate him, at least there were no weapons around out here. Inside the house would have been a bad place to surprise him, considering the relatively close proximity of their kitchen knives. A knife wouldn't kill David, but it would be another nuisance to deal with, one that he felt he didn't have the energy for, as interesting as it might be to spar with Michael once again.

He didn't have to wait for much longer.

When the moon was completely obscured by dark clouds and those noisy little goats had fallen into a light sleep, a motorcycle came roaring up the driveway. The engine was cut and rubber soles crunched very lightly against the dirt path leading to the deck. David heard the jingling of metal keys and the thrumming of a steady heartbeat, and he _saw_ Michael, in all of his handsome, broad-shouldered, messy-haired glory.

If David were mortal, his heart might have done something silly. His breaths might have stuttered out of anxiety just for a moment. But David no longer feared the judgment or the wrath of men, and he very seldom ever felt attraction. So why did his blood seem to thin just from Michael's presence?

Michael didn't see him, his gaze trained on the keys in his hands as he approached the front door. David found amusement in that. Michael wasn't naïve, but no one said that Max picked him for his strong intuition.

Michael slid the house key into the deadbolt, completely oblivious.

"It's not locked."

Michael froze, his hand still on the key. His heartbeat became erratic, and David could practically smell the adrenaline that must have shot through the brunette's body.

"You shouldn't be so careless in a city like this," he went on, his voice calm and cool. "You never know who might stop by."

His eyes were trained on Michael as the brunette slowly turned. David almost expected fear, maybe with a dash of seething hatred. Michael's eyes were impossibly wide, his lips parted slightly in a classic look of shock.

David slid off the railing and took two careful steps toward him, coming into better view for the human. "You would know better than anyone. Right, Michael."

Michael suddenly looked pale, and anguished. His head tilted to the side as he turned to face him fully. "David." His voice was so soft, hardly more than a whisper.

That caught David off guard, but his step faltered for only a beat. "You had to see this coming," he continued to patronize. He walked in an arc, coming toward Michael's side. It was instinctual for him to approach humans this way, like a predator would. "You did, didn't you? You don't seem very surprised." He actually didn't. Not after his very brief initial shock.

David really shouldn't let his pride do the talking—making it sound like _of course_ he'd be back, _of course_ Michael hadn't seen the last of him. He shouldn't toy with him, and he wasn't trying to.

Michael didn't exude fear, so that was a good sign. He did, however, shift his weight to instinctively guard the side that David was approaching. He was more muscular than David remembered—more formidable. For a moment, David got a glimpse of the vampire that he thought Michael could have become.

When Michael spoke again, he sounded anxious. "I— There's so much I wanted to say, I just—" And there was the taste of fear that David had expected. "Just let me say something before…before you do whatever you're gonna do."

Michael thought that David was here to kill him.

 _You don't know me at all, do you?_

He supposed Michael's conclusion was a fair one, though, all things considered. They didn't exactly get off on the right foot with each other. They hadn't been allowed to.

David tilted his head a bit, considering the brunette. Michael inhaled sharply, as if preparing himself. "I—"

"I'm not going to kill you, Michael," David interjected, his voice a bit sweeter than it was cool, this time.

Michael paused, then blinked, stunned. David didn't have to take a peek into Michael's thoughts to see his genuine regret. He wore his heart on his sleeve, much like Marko did. There was no malice to be seen for miles. "You're…not? But I—"

"I remember." He didn't blame Michael for what happened. Before Michael made that final move—that bold, honestly _impressive_ move—David had been willing to forget everything and accept Michael. He'd still cared for him and felt responsible for him. Nothing had changed now.

Michael's eyes became glossy for the briefest moment. He shook his head. "Then why are you here?"

This was going far better than he could have ever imagined, and for the second time that night, David was filled with genuine hope. He smiled. "Let's talk."

. . . . . .

"This is it?" David asked when he and Michael reached Dwayne and Paul's resting place—the same place that David had resurfaced from just hours earlier. The private gravesite was about a quarter of a mile from the Emersons' property, another thing he'd been unaware of.

Michael nodded and propped his shovel up on the ground as David surveyed the ground. "There," Michael said, pointing with the flashlight. "And there."

They were unmarked. Michael had already explained all of the details of their burial on the short walk here. He said that he had to do all of it in secret, afraid that his grandfather would desecrate the graves if he found out that their bodies hadn't been burned. He said that Sam had covered for him, but that no one else knew. It took them two days.

As touching as all of that was, David was distracted by the disturbing realization that he couldn't feel even the slightest presence from either of his brothers—not even the softest vibration or whisper to let him know that they were underneath the ground where Michael said they were.

He wordlessly held out his hand for the shovel, which Michael handed over to him. Even though he wasn't at full strength, he would be a much more efficient digger than the brunette. He didn't mind doing this on his own. His brothers were his responsibility, after all, in life and in death.

He began to dig.

"I tried to bury all of you together," Michael said uncertainly, "but…" But he couldn't find Marko? He couldn't take the time to look, in fear of getting caught? It didn't really matter to David. Burying them all together might have brought some kind of weird closure for Michael, but the dead took no comfort in the efforts of the living. "I'm sorry."

Michael's words sounded genuine, so David decided not to voice his thoughts. Besides, he wanted to move past everything, not create tension over something so trivial. "It's fine, Michael," he replied as he heaved shovel after shovel of dirt off to the side. "Let's just forget about everything that happened before."

Michael nodded, and a grin pulled at one side of his mouth. "So we're doing a full reset starting where you crawled out of the ground like something from Thriller?"

David's eyes lit up at him. " _Exactly_." He stabbed the dirt again.

Michael's lopsided grin eased into a more relaxed smile. "I can do that. After, you know, everything that happened…when I realized that you were never really in charge—"

"Who was never in charge now?" David leveled him with a playfully challenging look.

Michael's eyes suddenly fixed themselves to a random point through the woods. "I mean—it was Max's idea, wasn't it?" At the mention of Max's name out of Michael's mouth, David slowed in his digging just a little. "The big plan was, anyway. So then I started thinking, how much was _you_ and how much was him? And I wished so badly that I could've asked you. I thought, maybe I killed you for no reason."

"Well I wouldn't say it was for _no_ reason…"

"David, I'm serious."

David sighed quietly and stilled his work. He propped the shovel up against the ground and leaned one of his forearms across the handle. Apparently he was weaker than he originally thought, because he needed a break already. Fatigue was starting to settle into his body. Who knew that skipping out on meals for a year could leave him so tired? He tilted his head to the side a bit as he regarded Michael. The woods around them were silent, and the air felt thin between them. "Go ahead, then."

Michael furrowed his brows. "What?"

"I'm right here, aren't I? So just ask me." He supposed that it was unrealistic to expect them to move on and never address what happened. In order to get past everything, they first had to at least acknowledge it.

Michael seemed uncertain, then, but he played along. "All right…" He pulled his hands from out of his pockets and crossed them over his chest. "Undead David. How much say did you have in what happened?"

David told the truth. "None."

Michael blinked. " _None_ of it was your idea?"

David mulled it over for a second before he replied. "We weren't forced to _like_ you, if that's what you mean. That part was real."

Michael looked pensive, troubled. "I wondered why you picked me. But you didn't, did you?"

David's eyes softened. "No, Michael. Max chose your fate the moment he met your mother. The wine, the initiation, that was all because of how things needed to work out. You _had_ to be turned."

"I don't understand…Why didn't you just tell me?"

David fell still and silent for a moment. It had never truly crossed his mind to tell Michael about Max's plan—to tell Michael about Max _at all_ , until the time came. Perhaps he'd been concerned that if Michael knew, he would just run away even faster.

Or maybe David had _wanted_ Michael to resist him, because that's what _he_ had wanted all those years ago—only, in David's case, it wasn't becoming a vampire that he'd opposed to. On his bad days, David wished that he had struggled harder. On his worst days, he wished that he'd just bared his throat and submitted to Max's every whim. In a twisted way, it felt good for Michael to put his foot down once and for all and pin him on those antlers. You couldn't yell "no" any louder than that. David was proud.

None of that was something he felt like sharing with Michael at the moment. "Would it have made any difference?"

"Yes!" David lifted a brow at Michael's instant and impassioned response. "At least then I would've known who the real problem was."

Oh, Michael… David chuckled and looked casually at the couple largest trees around them, his teeth nearly glowing as he smiled. Michael actually looked frustrated for a second. How cute. "If you think we could've teamed up and killed him so that we could all come out on top, I'm telling you right now, that would have _never_ happened."

He adjusted his stance and grabbed onto the body of the shovel that was still pointed down next to his boots. "Don't get caught up on the what-ifs, Michael," he said when the brunette fell quiet. "Those are for people who've run out of chances." The shovel made a brief _shick_ noise as he poked the ground with it. "You and me?" He smirked wickedly. "We aren't done yet."

And with that, he once again began to dig toward the rest of his family.


	3. Chapter 3

**From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who's read (and is still reading) this story so far. Every comment means so much to me. :) This chapter has been more or less "complete" for months now, but I didn't feel very confident to post it. I also wasn't sure yet where exactly I want this story to go. I think I've worked through those problems, so here's to hoping for a regular update schedule from here on out. ;)**

* * *

"Hey, David?"

Michael's voice cut through the silence that had fallen between them, snapping David out of his own mind. David was sitting on the ground with his back against a thick tree, an arm resting across one of his knees, while Michael finished digging up the graves. They'd switched places at the brunette's insistence when he had almost reached his limit. He wouldn't be able to recharge just by sitting down for a half-hour or so, but it was a nice excuse to gather his thoughts and plan his next course of action. "Hmm?"

Michael's expression was pinched. He wasn't digging anymore; David didn't recall when he'd stopped. The hole was very large at this point, as his two brothers had been buried right next to each other. Maybe Michael just needed a break. David sure had. "Where're you gonna keep them, while they…you know."

For a moment David considered whether to tell Michael—not for lack of trust in him, but rather a strong distrust in the friends of his nosy little brother. Michael must have noticed his hesitation, because he added, "I'm just curious. Is it the hotel? You're probably moving back in there, right?"

Michael was oddly curious about where they'd be staying, wasn't he?

David trusted that he wouldn't betray their location, accidentally or otherwise. "Probably not. If those kids suspect we're back, they'll go to the hotel first. Marko is at Max's right now. That's where we'll all stay." He could practically hear his family screaming at him from beyond the grave to shut his mouth. They would probably think he'd completely lost his mind to be putting his faith in Michael again so soon, but David just couldn't shirk the impossible hold that the boy had on him.

Michael's eyes widened. "Wait, M—Wh—You didn't tell me he was alive too!"

Oh, that's right. It was strange now, to think that just a few hours earlier he'd been concerned that Michael or someone else in his family might try to send him back to the grave. He supposed he'd been a little paranoid—but you couldn't be too careful when everything you had left was at stake.

"Didn't I?" He'd told himself he wouldn't play any mind games with Michael, but that didn't mean he couldn't fuck with him a little bit here and there.

"No! What—" Michael stopped himself short and shook his head when he noticed David's partially-hidden smirk. "Wow, so this is actually happening. You're all coming back."

"That's the plan," he drawled as he surveyed the ground around his feet for no reason except that he didn't have anything else to do. Well, he supposed he could watch Michael instead… That might be more interesting.

"So…" David lifted his gaze when Michael spoke again. "If you're staying at Max's, then I should probably tell you that Sammy went there before with Mom. He might remember where it is, and I think he's still friends with the Frog brothers…" Michael trailed off and eyed David with thinly-veiled concern. "Could that be a problem?"

David was officially glad that he told Michael their housing plans. He would have to sit on this new information, maybe revise their plan. "Could be. I might have to kill all three of them just to be safe. You understand, right?"

The color drained from Michael's face and David's faux-serious expression cracked. Michael breathed again in relief. "That's not funny."

David rolled his eyes. "Sure it's not." He honestly couldn't care less what Michael's brother knew or who he hung out with. David had never harbored ill intentions toward Michael's family, and if it wasn't for Max, he and his brothers would have left them alone completely.

As for those young slayers, David would have to think on what should happen to them. In the past, they'd been a fun nuisance to watch from afar. So blinded by their need to destroy vampires they couldn't spot a real one if it bit them in the face. They'd never been a real threat—not until…well, _that_ day. And only with Michael's help.

David was suddenly stricken by the thought of history repeating itself. How foolish he would look, how painful it would be, if Michael broke his trust again.

The brunette suddenly asked, "What about Max? He sort of…caught on fire. There's no body left. Are you gonna try to bring him back, or…?"

David tensed. He didn't want to talk about Max. He didn't want to even _think_ about Max, but he knew that was inevitable. Truthfully, Max occupied probably half of all his thoughts, and drained just as much of his energy.

Max would be back, eventually. He didn't have any way of actually knowing that, except for the unmistakable gut feeling that he'd never be able to get away so easily.

"Er, sorry," Michael mumbled after a lack of response. "I didn't know if you were, you know, close or anything…" Michael stabbed the dirt to begin digging again, but his eyes held a question that David was most definitely not going to answer.

It fell quiet for a moment; the only sound between them was that of dirt being tossed onto a rather large mound of even more dirt.

When the shovel scraped something solid, Michael prodded it with the metal tip. It sounded hollow.

David was on his feet in an instant and dropping down into the large hole. He stared down at the thinly-covered coffin, absently aware that Michael was staring at him. "Door number one?" Michael asked rather shyly and hopefully.

David's eyes were slightly widened and overwhelmed when he made eye contact with the flushed human. One of his brothers was in there, just inches below his feet. Dead, but there.

He squeezed his fists, just once, when they felt too light and unsteady. The makeshift coffin was still partially weighed down by layers of dirt, but Michael seemed to be as tired as he was, so he would just have to muster the strength to pull the lid off anyway.

"Watch out."

Michael hoisted himself out of the grave. David brushed off dirt with a gloved hand until he found a corner where nails met wood. The seam was imperfect; the lid was just slightly wider than the base.

Digging himself out of his own coffin, having his first meal in a year, nearly bleeding himself dry to bring Marko back, and now digging up these graves in the same night meant that he was almost completely spent. Almost.

He grabbed onto the edge of the lid and pulled with a force that normally would have been effortless. The wood slowly began to splinter as he strained himself. Eventually it did break, and the rest of the lid followed in uneven chunks.

When he was done, he gazed into the open coffin from a semi-crouched position. His eyes flickered to the old blue sheet that was draped over the body. Strange. Whose idea was that?

Above him, Michael stirred uncomfortably. David partially removed the sheet and immediately felt light-headed. He swayed to the side, reaching out to catch himself on the solid ground that was now at waist height.

He understood the sheet. Paul was nightmarish, his body just a skeletal horror show with exposed tendons and organs. There was something very textbook-like about it that could have been fascinating—after all, none of them had ever shied away from gore—but given whose body it was, it was possibly the most disturbing sight that David had ever laid eyes on.

"Jesus Christ…Hey, are you all right?" Michael crouched to be able to place a hand on David's shoulder.

David leaned away and raised his hand to reject the gesture. "Just get the other one," he said tersely—then rubbed his forehead when he realized that he might have just unintentionally referred to Dwayne as _the other one_.

It took him a long moment, but Michael eventually went to work again, albeit more slowly this time. He kept glancing over at Paul, and at David.

Paul wasn't even recognizable except for his jacket and jewelry. He always liked to wear those stupid spikes on his wrist. Sometimes he would try to poke Dwayne with them, make him bleed a little. To them, a few spikes were like papercuts that healed within seconds. He only did it to annoy their quietest brother, and to subsequently get on David's nerves. Paul always liked doing that. Whenever David snapped at him—for anything, really—Paul would just laugh like everything in this world entertained him. He had no fear of David, or of any authority. Paul was the only one who would freely hang on David's shoulder in public and make sarcastic, over-the-top facial expressions to the others whenever he felt that David was being especially moody. That being said, Paul was always the first to defend him, physically or otherwise. The tall, disruptive blond would step in the way of a threat with the speed of a pouncing cheetah. As much of a pain in the ass as he could often be, he would have gladly laid down his life for any of them. He had a very selfless nature—a rare trait in a vampire.

Not that any of that mattered, considering he was deader than a hyena's leftover dinner scraps. David had only had a quick glance of the body, but even with his head turned away and his eyes closed, the image still haunted his mind. He felt ill.

He was on the verge of splitting at the seams, but he held himself together with all the strength he could muster—strength that he then expended on opening Dwayne's coffin.

David stood above-ground with Michael, gazing down at the open coffins, unable to look away from the oddly-shaped form in the second one. Dwayne was in pieces. Weirdly fitting, considering how David felt that his relationship with Dwayne was likely damaged beyond repair.

Dwayne had a strong, passionate nature underneath his quiet persona. He was actually very much like David in many ways. They both had introverted qualities, but while David looked for ways to control a situation, Dwayne was content to sit back and take opportunities as they came along. He was patient. Aloof by default, but secretly very opinionated. His comments were a mix of carefully considered statements and wry humor.

He and David seemed to understand each other best when they were shedding blood together. Whenever they tore through their rivals with the kind of ferocity that made rivers run red, Dwayne would look at him with wide eyes filled with admiration, his breathing exaggerated and his body rhythmically tensing and relaxing as if his very being was singing _yes_.

Dwayne encouraged a more domineering side in David, but the brunette, perhaps paradoxically, never felt inclined to lead anyone. He never threatened David's leadership—only needed reassurance that he was better off with his brothers than on his own. Or perhaps he just wanted to make sure their leader didn't falter.

David would say that he _had_ faltered, but that was a gross understatement. He'd tripped on his own sword and stabbed himself in the eye.

Seeing Paul and Dwayne like this, he felt like his world was tearing once more. He had to get his shit together.

"What now?" Michael asked after what felt like an eternity, turning his head to watch David.

"Go home. I'll take care of the rest."

Michael's brows pinched. "Are you sure?"

He tilted his head to look at Michael then, directly into those steel blue eyes, and placed his hand on the taller man's shoulder. He could feel Michael's warmth through his glove, could practically feel the blood humming in his veins. Michael's eyes darted to the cool hand, then back to David's steady gaze. "Thank you, Michael."

Michael's expression went very soft. David allowed his eyes to briefly glance over the features of the brunette's face, from his sad, regretful eyes, to his flushed cheeks, to his slightly parted lips. Michael was going to say something. David didn't want him to.

"Go home," he repeated. The corner of his mouth quirked. "Tell your brother I said hi."

Michael snorted, rocking away from David a bit as if to break himself away from whatever moment he'd been having. "Yeah, sure." He half-turned as if to leave, but hesitated. "I'll see you around?"

David came close to a genuine smile, but it still held remnants of a smirk. "We'll catch up sometime."

Michael left with his hands in his pockets, glancing over his shoulder only once before he was completely out of sight. The small smile vanished from David's face. He cast his face to the dark sky and closed his eyes, listening for Michael's footsteps to disappear.

He breathed, tight and shaky, as his eyes drifted to Dwayne's dismembered body. A familiar coldness gripped his spine.

Calling on Marko had always been as simple as breathing. David only needed to _want_ , and his brother would respond. In his mind, he imagined finding a taut, bright yellow string down the middle of an endless hallway with no walls or ceiling. He ghosted his fingers along the thread just as he'd always done.

For the first time since Max made him and Marko a pair, David felt overwhelmingly alone and lost in that dark corridor. He sucked in a sharp breath and brought himself back to reality, in the woods near Michael's house, standing above the remnants of last year's carnage. The feeling lingered.

Marko's unceremonious landing snapped David out of his strange thoughts. "You rang, Sally?"

The familiar presence was such an overwhelming relief that he almost buckled at the knees from exhaustion. Nonetheless, he avoided eye contact, preferring to focus on the soft dirt at the foot of Dwayne's grave. "Come here, will you."

Marko tilted his head but skipped over. "I don't suppose Michael's in there?"

 _Don't sound so hopeful_ , David almost mumbled, but he held his tongue because this was no joking matter. Marko seized up when he found his place beside David and saw for himself what his brother had been up to.

"They were almost torched," David supplied, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to say. He half-expected that this would be the beginning of the end, so to speak—that Marko would never be able to look at David the same way again, now that he knew the gravity of what had taken place last summer. It was _David_ who led them into that house, after all. "Michael buried them."

Marko's snort was quiet, and so misplaced that David's eyes snapped towards him. "What."

For some reason that forced a louder snicker out of the younger vampire, which he failed to stifle with his sleeve. David frowned, utterly confused. Marko pursed his lips to contain his laughter, and when he met David's eyes, some of his amusement seemed to die off. "Sorry, but you're not really _'with it'_ tonight," Marko spouted off, making an insulting gesture by his head.

David's eyes narrowed. "Forgive me for having a long fucking day."

There was a myriad of conflicting emotions that crossed Marko's face before he was back to that knowing smile of his. "All I'm saying is _of course_ it was Michael. _Everything_ is because of him." David breathed in to protest that, even though he knew Marko was being intentionally enticing at this point. "Sweet, sweet Michael…"

"Stop."

"So humane, so _human_ —eugh."

"Can we please focus?"

Marko hummed. "Right." He walked the perimeter of the grave until he was standing on the opposite side, studying their brothers' corpses like he wasn't even a little bit disturbed. They did lead a morbid lifestyle, but something was amiss here. "Too many parts," he said, pointedly looking at Dwayne's pieces. "We might drop something." If his point wasn't clear enough, he mimed trying to awkwardly fit all of Dwayne's body parts in his arms.

Surely he was pretending to be unaffected…or maybe David had been so worked up over all of Marko's possible reactions that he couldn't accept that maybe Marko…didn't care?

David leaned over, hands on his knees. Every minute he felt closer to splitting open at the seams. He distracted himself by looking into Paul's casket. "You're gonna be so fucking disgusting to move." _Sorry, pal._

There was a moment of silence before Marko beat him to it. "Wheelbarrow?"

They locked eyes.

They were going to need so much goddamn family therapy after this.


End file.
